


The Hound, Dying

by swimmingfox



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Internal Monologue, One-Shot, sob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 01:13:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1800025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/pseuds/swimmingfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hound is left dying on the cliffs by Arya. These are his last thoughts, in a short one-shot. TV canon, just 'cause.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hound, Dying

**Author's Note:**

> Just getting this out of my system... Characters GRRM's, grief mine own, ha ha! (PS Have altered the title...)

She left me. 

There’s a rock digging like a slow, blunt dagger in my hip. My _ear_. My fucking ear. The whole of that side of my face ruined. As if it matters, now.

My leg’s fucked, utterly fucked. Like a great dragon’s taken a chomp out of it. That stupid horsey bitch. Out of practice. I’ve been out of practice, not enough men to kill. Too much traipsing around, looking for hares and rabbits and somewhere where everyone’s not fucking dying.

It seems colder. The armour’s ripped clean off my shoulder. Seven hells, if there are raptors round here, mountain cats – biggest bloody mouse they’ll ever find.

My neck. That bite’s come back to haunt me and all. My ribs. Think they’re broken. All of them. I’ve boulders in my gut.

She left me here.

Never thought I’d go like this. Fighting because – because what? Because some woman-knight with a face like part-kneaded dough says she’ll take the wolfgirl off my hands? Because that’s not what I want? Because somehow, the only way I know she’s safe is with me?

What did she make me into, that hard little – all this time, feeding her, looking sparks in the eye as I made another fire. Getting her from the Twins, where she’d have been trampled, sliced in two quick as anything. Those fucks at the inn, saying they’d have her. I did all that.

She left me here to die.

I don’t know. Good for her. Took my silver and all. I’m a dead man, so I taught her that well at least. Taught her too fucking well.

I told her about my face and she bloody washed my neck and stitched me up and – she just left me, after all that. 

Always thought fire was the worst thing, but it’s this. This cliff-edge, this pathetic bit of saxifrage flower bobbing at me like a septon. These great big swipes of hill and mountain, saying everything and nothing. The white splatters on these rocks. My blood on them.

Fuck, it’s cold, though. 

Night’s here. Don’t know how that happened. Only blinked once or twice. Even worse, now – the pain, and the fear. The fear, not of something being out there, but of _nothing_.

To not give me mercy. I swear her face hardened, like glaze, no cracks, when I asked for it, said about the heart. 

I cleaned my saddle after I killed that runt butcher boy of hers. It never smelt, after.

The heart. What the hells is this great stupid thing inside us, thumping like a bloody wardrum, pounding us forward through all our battles, and for what? Just to bloody stop, just like that, in the middle of one.

Bloody piss it all to the seven hells.

I was going to get on a boat. Saltpans. Get over to - who knows where, Braavos, Pentos, somewhere without bloody _kings_ , somewhere I could settle down, find wine that didn't taste like piss, have a girl or two on my cock once in a while, get paid for doing what I do best. What I once did best.

What I did. Think on that. Fighting because I was told to, killing for the same. No questions. Each man I killed was my brother, and yet when they fell my brother was always still there.

How long am I going to be here? Can’t bloody bear it, all the silence. Need a rock to brain myself with, if I even had the strength. I move my hand around, numb fingers on numb rock. There’s nothing I can loosen.

Morn. Or later. Sun’s high. My mouth’s as dry as old woman’s cunt. She took the water and all. I gave that dying man our water, back in that burned village. She saw me. Might have even given him a drop of wine if I’d had it. I didn’t teach her that. That was straight from her, in the depths of her flint bones, her marrow. 

I wonder if she’ll be alright. 

Where’s Stranger? She was good with him in the end. Did she take him with her? Has he been left, tied to that bloody rock? Maybe he’ll chew through his rope, clatter down here, find me, get me up – fuck, I’m delirious. Children of the forest starting to pick through the vines in my brain.

No feeling in my toes. In my ankles, either. 

A bird goes, really high up. Can’t tell if it’s a big one or a small one. A little curving cry, which makes me think of swords in the air, or of someone peeling the skin off an apple, giving it me to eat, a woman’s freckled hand from high above me. Mayhaps it will come and land on my shoulder, not to peck at me, just to sit. I’d like that.

The pain in my leg’s spread now. It’s eating my stomach up, my knees, my neck. Every inch of skin stretched tight with the pain.

Gods, I’m tired, now.

The sky’s so wide. Wide as the last breath a man takes. There’s a smell, old moss and birdshit. It’s maybe me.

I can feel my years slowly ebbing from me, can see each part of my sorry fucking existence drifting up like the smoke of a fire at dawn. Wisps. That’s all they are. Wisps, of home. Of the moat. The woods. My mother and her sad, absent frown and tucking my hair behind my ear. Wisps, of my brother and his anger, darker than a burnt kettle, darker than the Stranger. My father, disappearing, no word. Travelling, horsebacks and saddle sores, green as I was. Yard-training, and bruises from wooden swords. Nicks from real ones. Gambling my coin away. Hearing the shit guards talked of. Screams from whores with no sense to play it down. Helms and soldiers and another sort of screaming. Sers and your Graces and his Lordships. Cunts, the lot of them. And, always, my name called. Dog! Dog! Echoing in my ears.

My real name, whispered. Or maybe it’s the wind, scraping off this cliff-stone.

She’ll never know that it’s not fucking her sister bloody I think of. That as I lie here, all my life spent quicker than any coin I ever had in my palm, is of her, here with me now, lying next to me, pressed close. A cool palm on my cheek, not caring about the blood and dirt and tears. Amber hair tucked under my chin. My real name spoken, just loud enough for me to hear. A kiss, maybe, light as a damned bloody snowflake. A snowflake that settles, just for a last heartbeat, before turning to water, to air.

Gods -


End file.
